Su Shis Han Shi Poem- Famous Running and Cursive Script Calligraphies (Chinese Edition)
(This series of calligraphies is writing calligraphies whi...)
This series of calligraphies is writing calligraphies which are collections of running script and cursive script classics. Su Shis Han Shi Poem was composed and wrote by Su Shi, running over with rolling emotions. The poem was desolate an depressed, the calligraphy was just under this emotion. It was undulate, quick, steady and smooth. Su Shis Han Shi Poem was a masterpiece in Sushis calligraphies and has significant influence on calligraphy history. Xian Yuxu in Yuan Dynasty honoured it as ""the third running script"" after Wang Xizhis Preface to Lanting and Yan Zhenqings Condolence for Nephew.
Complete Works of Su Dongpo: Illustrated Version (Chinese Edition)
(The book collects the classic literary works of China Son...)
The book collects the classic literary works of China Song dynasty writer Su Shi, a famous literatus and painter at that time. His literary thought focuses on ""Novelty is unbounded, subtleties beyond boldness"". There are more than seven hundred existing poems of him of different contents, and of different styles. The bold feature, forceful stroke, and romantic color open new path for north Song poem development. He extended the spirit of north Song dynasty literature revolution movement to the field of Ci and established the school of boldness, extended new subjects to Ci and enriched the artistic conception, a great contribution to the innovation and development to Ci. His essays are unconstrained but precise and direct. The book is well illustrated, annotated, and translated for readers' convenience.
Su Shih also known as Su Tung-p'o, was a Chinese author and artist.
Background
Su Shih was born in Meishan, in present-day Szechwan, to a most remarkable family of rather obscure origins. His father, Su Hsün (1009 - 1066), and younger brother, Su Ch'e (1039 - 1112), also attained literary fame, and all three are listed among the eight prose masters of T'ang and Sung. Upon the death of their mother in the same year, the brothers left with their father for Szechwan to observe the customary mourning period, and it was not until 1060 that they journeyed back to the capital to receive official appointments. In 1066 Su Hsün died, and the brothers returned home for the last time to observe the mourning period.
Education
The Su brothers studied under the personal guidance of their father and mother, an educated woman and devout Buddhist. In 1056, accompanied by their father, the brothers went to the capital, Kaifeng, to take the civil service examination, and the next year they both earned the Chin-shih degree with high honors. The chief examiner, Ou-yang Hsiu, highly impressed by the literary talent of the three Sus, took them under his wing and spread their fame in the capital.
Career
Su Shih served the government from 1061 until the year of his death in a series of capital and provincial posts. One had to be a high-ranking minister to be in a position to achieve deeds of statesmanship, but, unfortunately, during his official career Su Shih stood in opposition to the powerful Wang An-shih and his "New Laws" party and served in the capital only during the brief periods when the New Laws party was out of favor. Though his memorials to the throne regarding the policies of the New Laws party show his responsible statesmanship in the Confucian fashion, Su never played a leading role in national politics as did his great fellow writers Ou-yang Hsiu, Wang An-shih, and the historian Ssu-ma Kuang. After each brief stay in the capital Su would be maligned and exiled to local posts. However, as a humane and capable magistrate, he was much loved by the people of every district or prefecture where he served. After serving in a series of provincial posts from 1071 to 1079, Su was arrested on charges of slandering the Emperor, imprisoned in the capital, and then banished to Huang-chou in a minor official capacity. In 1085, following the death of Emperor Shen-tsung, the New Laws party temporarily lost power, and Su was recalled to court, serving in the Imperial Hanlin Academy and filling other high offices. After he had contracted enmity with his blunt criticism, he repeatedly requested a provincial post. In 1089 he was appointed prefect of Hangchow, where he built a dike on the West Lake which is still named after him. Su was back at court in 1091, and for the next 3 years he served alternately at the capital and as prefect of important cities. When the New Laws party returned to power in 1094, Su was banished to Hui-chou in Kwangtung and then ordered further south to Hainan Island off the coast of Kwangtung. Now in his 60s, Su bore his existence there cheerfully, partly because of his faith in Buddhism and partly because of his strong, irrepressible sense of humor, which inclined him to take things philosophically. With the accession of Emperor Hui-tsung in 1100, he was pardoned and restored to favor. The next year he died at Ch'ang-chou.
Achievements
He was the most versatile genius in the history of Chinese literature. He excelled in every form of verse and prose he attempted and further distinguished himself as a calligrapher and painter. Like Ou-yang Hsiu, Su is a master of the lyrical fu. His two fu on the Red Cliff are a perennial delight to Chinese readers. He is the greatest poet in the shih style of the Sung period, at once descriptive and philosophic, combining an effortless use of metaphor and conceit with an expression of self that has imbibed the best in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Su was a great innovator in tz'u poetry. He and his follower in the Southern Sung dynasty, Hsin Ch'i-chi, rank as the two greatest tz'u poets in the heroic mode. Until Su's time, the tz'u had retained its connections with the kind of popular song sung by courtesans, and most tz'u poets wrote about sentimental and mildly erotic themes suggestive of the feminine voice. Su turned the tz'u into a man's song, capable of philosophic meditation on events of the past. But he also wrote some of the best love poems in the tz'u style.
Quotations:
"If you know peace, then you thrive; if you know contentment, then you are rich. "
"Deep at the bottom of the well no warmth has yet returned,
The rain which sighs and feels so cold has dampened withered roots.
What sort of man at such a time would come to visit the teacher?
As this is not a time for flowers, I find I've come alone. "
"I'll continue to climb, trying to reach the top. But no one knows where the top is. "
"Poetry and painting are rooted in the same law,
The work of heaven and of the first cause. "
"Define the limits of your vision: Having this, you will not be poorer Than a man who rules a dukedom. "
Personality
As a writer Su's achievement is so manifold that only a brief description of his contributions can be attempted here. He is one of the greatest prose writers in the "Ancient style, " equally adept in governmental criticism, reassessment of historical personages, and personal essays descriptive of his excursions.
Connections
Su Shi had three wives. His first wife was Wang Fu (1039–1065), an astute, quiet lady from Sichuan who married him at the age of sixteen. She died 13 years later in 1065, on the second day of the fifth Chinese lunar month (Gregorian calendar June 14), after bearing him a son, Su Mai. In 1068, two years after Wang Fu's death, Su married Wang Runzhi (1048–93), cousin of his first wife, and 11 years his junior. Wang Runzhi died in 1093, at forty-six, after bearing Su two sons, Su Dai and Su Guo. Su's third wife, Wang Zhaoyun (1062–1095) was his handmaiden who was a former Qiantang singing artiste. Zhaoyun remained a faithful companion to Su after Runzhi's death, but died of illness on 13 August 1095 at Huizhou. Zhaoyun bore Su a son, Su Dun on 15 November 1083, who died in his infancy. After Zhaoyun's death, Su never married again.
